Essay On Beauty Parlour

1090 Words3 Pages

The beauty parlour has been present throughout history, this space is utilized by both men and women who alter their appearance in order to conform to certain social roles and perform their identity (Black 2004:20). The beauty parlour I conducted field work in is Grace’s Beauty Parlour located in Mississauga. This beauty parlour is very popular for threading and waxing eye brows as a majority of their clients come specifically for their eye brow shaping services. In addition, Grace’s Beauty Parlour has a special cultural ambiance that caters to the employee’s Indian background, this is evident in the music and language the employee’s use to communicate to one another. This beauty parlour remains gender neutral in sense of colour, as the walls …show more content…

Therefore, the theme of this research is to analyze and evaluate the gender differences in use of space and social roles in Grace’s Beauty Parlour. In other words, I sought to examine the different ways in which men and women (customers and employees) utilize the same space and how their social roles and responsibilities differ from one another. In addition, I will be discussing how the space at Grace’s Beauty Parlour is constructed and laid out in order to influence customer movement. Moreover, another theme I will discuss in greater detail relates to the power dynamics between men and women employees at Grace’s Beauty Parlour. I will discuss how Grace’s Beauty Parlour is a highly gendered and feminized space, where women participate more actively than men, but, men employees obtain a higher position than women …show more content…

According to McCracken (2014:134), gendered division of labour is due to the inequality that exists between men and women. In addition, men are placed in higher positions then women and tend to dominant the workplace as women are subjected towards the “glass ceiling” (McCracken 2014:135; Smith and Elliott 2004:365). This power hierarchy between men and women is present at Grace’s Beauty Parlour and will be further discussed by analyzing the gendered division of labour. Although, many scholars argue that a beauty parlour is merely operated and owned by women (Barber 2008:458; Black 2004:21; Morris 1995:578). Instead, Grace’s Beauty Parlour is owned by two men who have employed many

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